Something to learn from Winter Soldiers

One rule I have in my house, among many, is that there is always something to learn. If you open your mind, set aside your own opinion long enough to hear what someone is saying, there is always something to learn. This is one more of those cases.

It is the Winter Soldiers who have been trying to get the attention from the media for very long time, offering the lessons. It is also the reason why so few have reported on any of this.

Thu May 15, 5:35 PM ET



The Nation -- Over the past two months since this year's Winter Soldier event, a parade of luminaries has gone before Congress to testify about the Iraq War: distinguished generals, cabinet secretaries and various think-tank dignitaries. One group, however, has been conspicuously absent from the conversation: soldiers.

Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War sought to remedy that, in a packed, three-hour forum on Capitol Hill in which the Congressional Progressive Caucus invited over a dozen veterans, gravely suited, to share their experiences. "We pretty much know what the Americans we sent did to Iraq," Rep. Lee told the crowd. "What we don't really know is what Iraq has done to them. That's why we're here today. To bear witness to their truth."

The following are just some things we need to learn from and then do something about.

Beneath it all ran a palpable theme: intense disappointment in a government that failed to provide for them.
"My M-16 was made in the 1970s.
There weren't enough night goggles to go around.
The line for psychologists is almost a year long," said Kochergin.
"If there's no care for the Marines, what care can there be for the people of Iraq?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080515/cm_thenation/917321275

M-16? We have not replaced them since 1970?

Goggles? Not enough to go around so they could see at night?

Psychologist? So few of them the men and women needing them have to wait a year to get help?

How is any of this possible? Is all of this true and how much more don't we know about? We knew there were not enough mental health workers in Iraq and we knew there were not enough Chaplains to go around either. But how is this possible that it is this bad and no one knew how bad it was?

U.S. Sergeant Refuses to Go to Iraq: "This Occupation is Unconstitutional and Illegal"
By Karin Zeitvogel, Middle East Online. Posted May 16, 2008.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, an American soldier named Matthis Chiroux publicly announced his refusal to deploy to Iraq.

"My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation… I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation," he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.

Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.

The testimonies were the first before Congress by Iraq veterans who have turned against the five-year-old war.

Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith told a half-dozen US lawmakers and scores of people who packed into a small hearing room of "lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis."

He spoke of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq, to find little help or treatment offered from official circles.

Goldsmith said he had "self-medicated" for several months to treat the wounds of the war.

Another soldier said he had to boost his dosage of medication to treat anxiety and social agoraphobia -- two of many lingering mental wounds he carries since his deployments in Iraq -- before testifying.

Some 300,000 of the 1.6 million US soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from the psychological traumas of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or both, an independent study showed last month.

A group of veterans sitting in the hearing room gazed blankly as their comrades' testimonies shattered the official version that the US effort in Iraq is succeeding.

Almost to a man, the soldiers who testified denounced serious flaws in the chain of command in Iraq.

Luis Montalvan, a former army captain, accused high-ranking U.S. officers of numerous failures in Iraq, including turning a blind eye to massive fraud on the part of U.S. contractors.
go here for more
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/85612/